Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

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Carbon60
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Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by Carbon60 »

About a year ago my magnetometer failed and when I checked into the fault I found the buried equipment flooded with water. I made some mods to the housing and installed a new sensor and electronics, but was never really fully satisfied with the final result which was close to, but not exactly matching data generated by professional geomagnetic observatories.

I've since assembled another sensor, built a new circuit and created what I think will be a more watertight housing using a glass jar, lots of melted wax to pot everything and a coating of durable polymer. I've also relocated the sensor in a different part of the garden which I believe will be a drier spot.

Now in its new location and buried about 0.5m in well drained soil I'm hoping for the best. My first full day's results after letting everything re-equilibrate look great. Here's a chart created on the 7th as compared with the professionals using my standard 150 second sampling cadence:
20210607_Standard Res Comparison.jpg
20210607_Standard Res Comparison.jpg (109.27 KiB) Viewed 667 times
...and here's a magnified view of the region between 6:00 am and 9:00 am in hi-res mode captured at 1s cadence compared with professional data. The red lines illustrate the alignment and close matching of both sets of data.
20210607_Hi_Res_Comparison.jpg
20210607_Hi_Res_Comparison.jpg (110.92 KiB) Viewed 667 times
I think this is about the best performance I've had out of this equipment. Very pleased.

Watch this space as cycle 25 continues to develop.

Thanks for looking.

Stu.


H-alpha, WL and Ca II K imaging kit for various image scales.
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Re: Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by christian viladrich »

Marvellous Stu. The accuracy looks quite good !


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Re: Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by marktownley »

Reference grade! Very good Stu! :cool:


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Re: Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by Montana »

Wow!! looks like you cracked it as the comparison is remarkable. Looking forward to the data going forward :hamster:

Alexandra


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Re: Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by thesmiths »

That's really good agreement. I assume you could use the "professional" results to calibrate the magnitude and offset.

By the way, would there be any point to a second sensor orthogonal to the first? I would guess where you are the Earth's magnetic field is probably tilted downwards around 45 degrees to the local ground level.


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Re: Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by Carbon60 »

Many thanks, Christian, Mark, Alexandra and Thesmiths.

Looking forward to when the activity builds.

Stu.


H-alpha, WL and Ca II K imaging kit for various image scales.
Fluxgate Magnetometers (1s and 150s Cadence).
Radio meteor detector.
More images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarcarbon60/
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Re: Magnetometer upgrade 7th June 2021

Post by Carbon60 »

thesmiths wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 3:55 pm That's really good agreement. I assume you could use the "professional" results to calibrate the magnitude and offset.

By the way, would there be any point to a second sensor orthogonal to the first? I would guess where you are the Earth's magnetic field is probably tilted downwards around 45 degrees to the local ground level.
Hi,
Three orthogonal sensors are used to measure the magnetic field in full, but only one is required for our purposes.

Cheers.

Stu.


H-alpha, WL and Ca II K imaging kit for various image scales.
Fluxgate Magnetometers (1s and 150s Cadence).
Radio meteor detector.
More images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarcarbon60/
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